Walk Blamelessly

Sermon October 6, 2024

Walk Blamelessly

 

 

As we continue moving through Genesis, I am using the first verses of Genesis 17 as my primary text. But before I read it, let me give you some background, and admittedly what I am about to say is a VERY brief overview of chapters 12-16. I hope you will read the narrative yourself sometime today.

 

In chapter 12, God told Abram to leave his home and move to a land He would show him. And so (verses 5: “Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated . . . and they set out for the land of Canaan.”

 

In chapter 13, Abram and Lot separate because they had so many livestock between them that they needed more grazing land. Lot took his herds and family to settle in Sodom. Chapter 14 tells us Abram rescued Lot and his family when they were taken captive during the war of the five kings.

 

That brings us to chapter 15 in which God told Abram that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in heaven. At this point, Moses tells us that Abram believed God, and God credited it to him as righteousness. (See 15:6).

 

But after 13 years, Abram and Sarai remained childless. And I want to reiterate here some important factoids: It was 25 years since God first spoke to Abram. It was now ten years since God promised Abram a descendant through his wife. And perhaps he, along with Sarai, thought they’d misunderstood God. After all, Sarai was now well past menopause, and we know from her laughter recorded in chapter 18 that Sarah did not believe she’d ever become pregnant.

 

But for now in our story, after ten long years had passed without her pregnancy, Sarai told Abram to go into her maid, Hagar, so she could have a child through her maid – a very common practice in that culture.

Which now brings us to chapter 17. Here is today’s text: “Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless. “I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.”

 

In this chapter God changed Abram’s name to Abraham and Sarai’s name to Sarah. So now, let’s go back to verse one, and what I have to say about the last part of this verse is extremely important to each of us in this sanctuary – including the one standing behind this pulpit. So, please hear me as I repeat the text:

 

God told Abram – the one who had followed Him for 25 years, who certainly made his share of errors and had his share of doubts for all those long decades – God told Him: “I am God Almighty; Walk before Me and be blameless.”

 

I want us to stop now for a moment and focus on a critically important point in this short text: God did not make a request of Abram to walk blamelessly before Him. It was not a suggestion. It was not a recommendation. It was a command: “Walk before Me and be blameless.”

 

Perhaps one reason God prefaced His command with the introduction, “I am God Almighty,” was to emphasize to Abram – AND also to all who would read this story down through the millennia – it was to emphasize that our Almighty Creator is the One who commands each man and woman on this planet to walk blamelessly before Him. The Creator has every right to DEMAND of us that we walk blamelessly before Him.

 

And because He is the Almighty God, He ALSO has the right to DISCIPLINE and, yes, to PUNISH anyone who chooses not to walk blamelessly. And that includes you and me. Indeed, we live very dangerously when we do not EXPECT God to discipline us if don’t walk as He commands us to walk.

 

Now, I’m not talking about stumbling into sin now and then and from which we repent. No, I am not talking about that. What I am talking about now are the persistent and ongoing choices we make to disobey God's commandments – ALL of them. As He tells us in 1 John 3:7b-8, “The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”

 

No wonder the Holy Spirit tells us in that same chapter of 1 John 3:2b-3, “We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

 

And He tells us through St Paul’s pen: (2 Corinthians 7:1) “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”
 
Christian – please hear this. This is important. When we persist in sin, when we make excuses for our sin, when we refuse to repent from our sin – we should EXPECT discipline from our Holy God to range from the ‘slap on the hand’ – so to speak, to severe punishment; Even death itself.  

 

PLEASE listen to Scripture’s warning through Paul to the Christians at Corinth. The context is holy communion: (1 Corinthians 11:27-30) “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep.”  ‘Sleep’ here is a euphemism for ‘death.’

 

There should be no doubt why the writer to the Hebrews also warned his readers: (Hebrews 10:26-27, 31) “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, ²⁷ but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. . . .  It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

 

Have our pastors spoken in the last two or three generations so much about God‘s love that we have forgotten that God is a holy God. He is a JUST God. He is a WRATHFUL God who NEVER winks at sin, especially when sin is done by those who profess to call Christ their Lord.

It should go without saying that God is not a capricious Creator. He is not an arrogant God. Or egotistical. Or narcissistic. He is Love itself. He is compassionate. Merciful. And so, when He commands us to walk in holiness before Him, He does so because He loves us. And He tells us:

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). And while God prefers that we obey Him out of love, He nevertheless requires obedience from us BECAUSE HE HAS THE ABSOLUTE RIGHT to require it of His creatures.

 

You have heard it said, I am sure, just as I have heard time and time again that the ‘fear of the Lord’ does not really mean ‘fear’ as we define the emotion. They say it means a ‘deep reverence’ for God. And yes, the context in both the old and new testaments often suggests a deep reverential fear of the Almighty. But as is ALWAYS the case when we interpret Scripture, CONTEXT is vital to our ability to properly understand a text.

 

So, for example, when Moses went up Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, he tells us in Exodus 20:18-20 - “All the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance. Then they said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin.” 

 

It should be clear from this context that the word ‘fear’ means exactly as we might expect it to me – ‘to be afraid’ of God.  And why should they be afraid of God?  Look at that last clause: So that they may not sin.

 

The same is true of Isaiah 8:13 when God says through the prophet: “It is the Lord of hosts whom you should regard as holy. And He shall be your fear, And He shall be your dread.”

 

Listen my brothers and sisters, we simply have GOT to get this. God is serious when He tells us to walk blamelessly before Him. He certainly says it often enough that the point should be crystal clear. The apostle Paul writes to the Christians at Corinth: (2 Corinthians 7:1) “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

 

Perfecting holiness in the fear or God – which begs the question, doesn’t it? HOW do we perfect holiness? Well, the answer is quite simple: Stop sinning. Listen again to Paul writing by the Holy Spirit: (1 Corinthians 15:34) “Become sober-minded as you ought, and stop sinning; for some have no knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.

 

Walk blamelessly before Almighty God. Make a conscious effort every day to stop sinning. For example, one of the most vulnerable parts of the Christian’s spiritual armor is the tongue. Listen to St. James: “If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless.” 

 

James continues in chapter three of his epistle: (James 3:6-9)  “And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell . . . . [the tongue] a restless evil and full of deadly poison. ⁹ With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God.”

 

Which should bring up an uncomfortable point about tongue and gossip. Listen to this indictment by the Holy Spirit through Paul’s pen (Romans 1:28-30) “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil . . . .”

 

Perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Walking blameless before our Creator. But beyond the tongue are a slew of other sins that so easily trip us up. Sexual immorality certainly tops the list for most people – regardless of our age and health. And you know, if you know your Bible, that it matters not in the least if sin with our body or with our mind – it is still adultery, or fornication, or perversion. You’ll find that warning in Matthew 5:27-28.

 

And then there is the sin of ‘unforgiveness.’ It is a rare, rare person indeed who does not struggle with this offense against God. “Forgive us our debts, - we ask the Lord when we recite the Lord’s Prayer – “as we also have forgiven our debtors.”  But we rarely ALSO recite what Jesus says two verses later in verse 14: “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”

 

And please hear this also, because I have great fear for some in church pews across the country.

 

We have an election coming up and if we think that it is not a sin to vote for people who promote the amputation of young girls’ breasts because they think they want to be boys, then we do not know the Holy Jesus of the Bible. If we think it is not a sin to vote for people who would amputate young boys’ genitals because they think they want to be girls, then we do not know the Holy Jesus of the Bible. If we think it is not a sin to vote for people who strive to make abortion the constitutional law of the country, if we think it’s fine to vote for people who bring Drag Queens into kindergartens to corrupt the morals of young children, then we do not know the Holy Jesus of the Bible. What we know is an imaginative Jesus. A make-believe Jesus. A lie straight from hell itself and one which, if we fall for it, will drag us into hell.

 

God is very, very serious about our walk of holiness. But – and I now bring this message to a close with these words – I must also remind us that God is equally serious about His forgiveness of the penitent, the ones who sin, then confess and repent of their sin and strive to continue to walk blameless walk before Him.  

 

That’s what the sacrificial atoning death of Jesus is all about – to divert the Father’s wrath against your sin and my sin onto Jesus, so that the one who repents of his or her sins and strives to walk blameless before our Holy Creator may receive full, complete, and everlasting forgiveness of those sins.

 

I will close this message this way – and please hear this. Please BELIEVE this: God is the God of the second chance. And the third. And the tenth. And the thousandth chance. He is not wishing that you nor I perish in a forever hellish torment. No, our Creator, who DEMANDS we walk in holiness before Him – our Almighty and merciful Creator wants us all to be with Him forever in eternity.

 

God told Abram – as He tells us in this sanctuary – “I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be blameless.” And God is very serious about that command. May He burn that truth today into our very souls. Amen.